We Carry Their Bones

This was a hard book for me to read, mostly because it (basically) took place in my backyard. I remember watching the news blurbs about the political back-and-forth taking place and shaking my head. Social media back-and-forth was depressing to read, because the comments under these news stories were by and large criticizing the team for stirring things up. The big-s South is alive and well in the panhandle of Florida.

In (very) brief, there was a reform school in Marianna, Florida, and lots of unsavory things happened there behind closed doors that were never properly investigated or recorded. Deaths happened, more than they accounted for, and a team was called in to look for unmarked graves and provide closure to families. The number of dead went from the institution's “idk like 15 or something” to over 55. There was lots of pushback from the surrounding community for digging into this school's history, because they believed the school provided a service to the community. It's a super sad story, and lots of fiction books were based on this school's history.

I really enjoyed the author's writeup of the science behind their forensic investigation, and what it meant to the families of children who went missing after being sent to this school. The timeline was a bit confusing as presented in the book, as the author hopped around a bit in telling the story of what led to the excavation, the families' histories, and the fallout. The story is compelling, sad, and incredibly graphic though, which made my timeline complaints rather mild in the face of the rest.

A word of caution before anyone decides to pick this book up though, it's not for the faint of heart. There's lots of descriptions of what surviving kids saw while in this institution, and all of it is incredibly disturbing. Reader beware, but absolutely pick it up if you're interested, if for no other reason than the story of this school and these kids need to be heard.